Rebuild
by the-ryter121
Summary: Natasha and Clint have survived their encounters with Loki, but no one said anything about being unscathed.
1. Rebuild

I have realized that my story is (accidentally!) very similar to Burn by White Lioness Spirit. You should read and review hers, she definitely deserves it.

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She awoke with a shudder, a cry dead on her full lips, a film of sweat leaving her chilled. The blankets had fingers, twining around her legs and clawing at her clothes. She brought a shaking hand to her face, as if she could pull the images into her cupped palm and keep them from flashing behind her eyes. Glimpses of a half-remembered nightmare, the ghost of fear clenching her lungs like a vice, tremors making their way down her spine. She remembered his grin, manic, twisting his familiar face into a monster, a monster that knew all of her secrets. Ice blue eyes stared into her, and he knew, he knew everything that she feared.

So much red in her ledger. She shook her head, but the motion could do nothing to dislodge the memories, and the cold feeling of dread that had slithered into her chest. A knife flashed, and cold steel brought sharp, hot pain. Intimately, Loki had said. Tears, familiar, pooled in her eyes, and she choked them back, swallowed her fear, and let it clench in her stomach rather than fall to her cheeks.

She had allowed him to get that close, welcomed the words, because she knew it would get her the information that they needed, knew that he would slip up. She hadn't expected that his words would cut so deep. Her blood on his hands. She had seen his eyes, had seen the blue leech out of them, and had seen his horror. That's what had woken her, what had caused her to cry out. She had seen his realization that he was a monster, his realization of what he had become, what he had done.

She kicked off the tangled sheets, and let the cold air of her room wash over her, sending goose bumps trailing over her moist skin. She walked to the small sink in her room, standard S.H.I.E.L.D. issue, and looked at herself in the reflection. All ashen skin and wide eyes, the shimmer of sweat on her pale brow. She touched her lip lightly; she had bitten it in her nightmare, and it was swollen slightly. She let cool water flow over her still-trembling fingers, and then splashed it over her face, cleansing and cold. She dried her face and examined her reflection again, dark circles beneath her eyes outlining the fear she felt every time she lay down to sleep. She took all of the threads of her emotions and wound them tightly, making them into steel, and she wrapped it around her spine, forcing her head up. Her muscles might still be quavering, and her heart beating fast, but she was not brittle. She would not be broken.

She stepped away from the mirror, her bare feet making nearly no noise on the cool metal tile of the floor, the path so familiar she needed no guidance in the darkness. She padded to her door and slid it open. She knew, somewhere deep in her chest, that he would be there. Clint stood in the darkness of the hallway, head bent as if in penitence. He glanced up when he saw the light of the door. His eyes searched hers, and she could see the struggle. He wanted to fight, to protect, to soothe. Finally, the inner turmoil seemed to settle, and though he wasn't calm, he was steady. He pushed himself from where he had been leaning, and closed the distance between them with two even steps. His rough hands skimmed the pale skin of her arms, before resting on her shoulders. Without a word he pulled her against his chest, and she nestled under his chin. His hands tangled in her scarlet hair, and they simply stood, embracing, in her doorway. She could heart his heart beating a steady rhythm against her ear, and the warmth of his skin soaked into her, loosening the tension wound around every inch of her frame.

He could destroy her. He could rebuild her.


	2. Renew

He doesn't tell anyone, sharing isn't really his style, but having Loki wheedle his way into your mind isn't something that you simply recover from. He has nightmares. Nightmares that cling to him, sit on his chest so he can't breathe, startle him awake in the night, shaken and chilled with sweat. He wakes trembling, fumbling from the covers, desperate to check the mirror. Every time a sliver of ice stabs into his heart when he looks at his own reflection, because every time he worries it isn't him anymore. Whose eyes are going to look back at him?

He would tell Nat, should tell her, but damn it if she isn't dealing with her own shit, she sure as hell doesn't need to deal with his demons too. Besides, it's hard to look at her sometimes, when the shadows of his nightmares bleed onto reality, and he swears he can see bruises on her skin. They used to spar, because she was as good as him, better, and he liked the challenge, but he can't do it anymore. Not right now. Pretending to want to hurt her makes him remember.

She doesn't talk either, though. He guesses at it, assumes that he knows what's eating at her, from what Loki asked him. But Natasha is a little too much like him, a little too broken to tell him how she's doing. All he knows is that when he's looking down from his roost, the dark smudges beneath her eyes match the ones he's been cultivating under his.

The problem with the dreams isn't that they're gruesome – he's seen enough gore to fill a lifetime of nightmares, and he used to sleep pretty well – but that they're personal. Twisted shit, blood on his hands, in her hair, the light fading from her eyes, with his name on her lips. Then there's the numbness, the distance he felt when he was torn out of his own head fading, to be replaced with horror at what he'd done. Revulsion. And the problem is that he can feel it. She knocked him upside the head and he'd woken up as Clint again, but he can feel it, like an infection in the back of his brain. He was weak enough to be unmade the first time, he could be unmade again, and be something else in an instant.

When he wakes up from the dreams, nightly occurrences, he's torn. He wants to see her, to be able to reach out and see that her skin is unbroken, and be reassured that he isn't the monster of his nightmares, but he's afraid to see the real damage. Just because he hasn't killed her, doesn't mean he hasn't broken her. He gave Loki the knife to bury in her back. Eventually, to quell the inner struggle, he takes to hanging in the hallways outside her room. He can't sleep, so he might as well do what he does best, keep an eye on everything; he'll keep her safe, from a distance, that is. He hears her sometimes, murmuring in her fitful sleep, and he wants to help, would, if he knew how.

It's one of those nights, and he's leaning outside her door when it slides open without warning. She's standing in the dim lighting, red hair clinging to her forehead, skin shimmering with sweat. He can see the fading images of her nightmare in the shining of her eyes, and he's lost. He knew he didn't want her to suffer, but seeing her like this makes an ache in his chest that stabs at his ribcage. He doesn't remember making the decision to move, but he finds himself holding her, her cool skin warming against his. He pulls away after a time, arms on her shoulders, holding her away and holding her steady all at once.

He opens his mouth to speak, but she silences him with a raised hand.

"It's ok, Clint," she says, haltingly, but the words fall feeble from her lips, and they both know it isn't true. After a beat she tries again, "it will be okay." The words do something to him, simple though they are, soothe something inside that's raw. He can't help but shake his head at this impossible woman, comforting him of all things, telling him that everything will be alright. He sighs, and suddenly his limbs are leaden, dragging him down with more weight than even his guilt could manage. She is pulling him toward her bed, dragging him forward before sleep pulls him under. Before he can even protest she's tucked under his arm, head resting above his heart, and he's settled into the mattress with a sigh. His eyes drift closed, and for the first time in weeks, he falls asleep, untroubled by dreams.

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AN: I'm definitely done this time. The idea of exploring Clint's side has been nagging me for a while, but now that I've gotten this out of my system, there won't be any more updates. Thank you so much for reading, and if you would like to, press that little button and review.


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